Mike Arauz is a strategist at 2009 is the Year of the Micro-Experience and the End of the Micro-Site
The era of the million dollar flashturbation micro-site is finally dead. We thought we had killed it with Web 2.0. We thought we had killed it with AJAX and Ruby on Rails. We thought we had killed it with Facebook and Youtube. But, now we have the foundering economy to thank for finally putting the nail in the coffin. In 2009 brands won't be able to justify the shocking price tags for sites that do more for the trophy shelf of the creative agency than they do for a brand's bottom line. 2009 promises to be a challenging year for brands and creative digital agencies alike, as budgets are slashed and belts are tightened. But, these financial constraints create an opportunity. 2009 isn't the year to do less work, or to do the same work for less money. 2009 is the year to do more work than ever, but at lower cost (and risk) than ever before.
2009 is the year to create micro-experiences instead of micro-sites.
I had coffee with Sean Howard yesterday, and he told be this great little anecdote from Bill Buxton's book Sketching User Experiences.
A ceramics professor comes in on the first day of class and divides the students into two sections. He tells one half of the class that their final grade will be based exclusively on the volume of their production; the more they make, the better their grade. The professor tells the other half of the class that they will be graded more traditionally, based solely on the quality of their best piece. At the end of the semester, the professor discovered that the students who were focused on making as many pots as possible also ended up creating the best pots, much better than the pots made by the students who spent all semester trying to create that one perfect pot.
In the past few years we've seen thousands of successful little projects spring up like weeds across the web. Web development is incredbibly accessible and collaborative now. And the cost of executing small ideas is practically nil.
Noah Brier has been a big proponent of this kind of iterative experimentation, and has built a number of sites on his own: Holy Crap Facts - a catalog of surprising facts, How Much Does it Buy? - a translator for dollars into familiar goods and services, My First Tweet - a public database of people's first messages on Twitter, and Brand Tags - a place to aggregate the collective perceptions of familiar brands. These sites cost Noah time and effort, but compared to your average branded microsite, these sites cost nothing. Released in May of this year, Brand Tags now has over 1.2 million tags.
And Noah's not the only one out there who's doing this kind of work. Look at Twistori, Umbrella Today, and Obama is Your New Bicycle. Look at the flood of iPhone apps. These are compelling experiences that are worth talking about, yet none of them were built by a multi-million dollar corporate agency. If you've got a good idea, build it quickly and cheaply. If it catches on: great. If it doesn't catch on: build something else quickly and cheaply. Rinse and repeat.
And if the multi-million dollar corporate agencies want a piece of the action in 2009, they're going to have to learn how to make a lot of pots.
2009 is the year to create micro-experiences instead of micro-sites.
I had coffee with Sean Howard yesterday, and he told be this great little anecdote from Bill Buxton's book Sketching User Experiences.
A ceramics professor comes in on the first day of class and divides the students into two sections. He tells one half of the class that their final grade will be based exclusively on the volume of their production; the more they make, the better their grade. The professor tells the other half of the class that they will be graded more traditionally, based solely on the quality of their best piece. At the end of the semester, the professor discovered that the students who were focused on making as many pots as possible also ended up creating the best pots, much better than the pots made by the students who spent all semester trying to create that one perfect pot.
In the past few years we've seen thousands of successful little projects spring up like weeds across the web. Web development is incredbibly accessible and collaborative now. And the cost of executing small ideas is practically nil.
Noah Brier has been a big proponent of this kind of iterative experimentation, and has built a number of sites on his own: Holy Crap Facts - a catalog of surprising facts, How Much Does it Buy? - a translator for dollars into familiar goods and services, My First Tweet - a public database of people's first messages on Twitter, and Brand Tags - a place to aggregate the collective perceptions of familiar brands. These sites cost Noah time and effort, but compared to your average branded microsite, these sites cost nothing. Released in May of this year, Brand Tags now has over 1.2 million tags.
And Noah's not the only one out there who's doing this kind of work. Look at Twistori, Umbrella Today, and Obama is Your New Bicycle. Look at the flood of iPhone apps. These are compelling experiences that are worth talking about, yet none of them were built by a multi-million dollar corporate agency. If you've got a good idea, build it quickly and cheaply. If it catches on: great. If it doesn't catch on: build something else quickly and cheaply. Rinse and repeat.
And if the multi-million dollar corporate agencies want a piece of the action in 2009, they're going to have to learn how to make a lot of pots.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
|
8 Comments:
I think you're right on Mike, though I still think we have a little longer to go before brands move away from the microsite completely ...
Also, I love the ceramics anecdote. That's awesome. Thanks for sharing.
it was tradition in my high school to make poorly disguised bongs in ceramics class. and yes, we tried to make as many as we could.
Your prediction on corporate budgets in spot on. Working for a fortune 100 company, I watched our A&P budget reduced from $30 million in '08 to $2.5 million in '09 (seriously).
It seems to me that iterative experimentation works well for the small guys. umbrella today and brand tags have no paid advertising--its all viral. But most corporate micro-sites require some promotion dollars...would you really want to spread your efforts so thin?
Corporations will still be making the best quality pot---but they'll only be able to pay for a few of them.
You and David Armano must be drinking from the same fountain. Although i agree that micro-sites are probably going to staqrt depreciating, i wouldn't say that they will altogether wilt away. Certainly not at the pace you hint at.
Whereas micro-sites represented clients campaign online, they will depreciated to make way for other devices online, devices you have defined as iphone apps or widgets.
However looking at a purely monetary perspective, campaign sites are mere drops in the bucket when you compare it to the media buying budgets that are reserved to spread the word. Where a site could be a cool million the media around the site are easily bigger by factors or 2 or 3.
You will see the emergence of macro-sites, that is sites that not only have a messaging platform, but make encourage and direct people to other hubs of activities such as rolled out communities on facebook and other social networks.
Thanks for the comments, everyone.
Sean, I do indeed read Armano regularly; and I'm sure plenty of his ideas get sucked into this blog.
I think you're right on with your idea of macro-sites. It makes a lot of sense for brands to build sites that direct visitors out to all their other properties across the social web. I think we'll see a lot of that next year. We'll also see a lot more content curation and aggregation. There's so much great stuff already out there, it's smart for brands to just collect it and share it.
@Mike, I'm a big fan or Armano as well so yeah it's tough for those visuals not to make it into your train of thoughts.
I think from a concept/structure mindset that Obama's digital campaign is an awesome blueprint for marketers looking for a product/brand launch and affinity strategy.
I don't get your ceramics anecdote. Is it a true story? Who judged which were the best pots? Were the best pots the nicest looking, or the most reliable?
I just don't see what point you're trying to make with it.
Hey Mike,
Was awesome once again having coffee. You always get my brain buzzing, dude. Looking forward to next time.
Did you see Charles Frith's post on the impact of the long tail and transmedia planning on agencies? I think you'll love it.
http://www.charlesfrith.com/2008/10/charlies-angle-not-made-for-tv.html
Post a Comment
<< Home